Sinochem and Statoil sign cooperation agreement

Norwegian Statoil and the Chinese Sinochem Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at fostering cooperation and long term experience sharing between the two companies.

Published: 24.06.2010

The MoU follows the Peregrino-transaction where Sinochem bought a 40% share in the oil field offshore Brazil. Statoil maintains 60% ownership and the operatorship of the field which is set to start production in early 2011. The MoU underlines the wish of the two companies to jointly investigate further opportunities in Brazil and elsewhere.

“The MoU is the beginning of a long term relationship between our two companies having similar international growth ambitions. I believe that we have supplementary skills and areas of expertise, strengthening both our opportunities globally by cooperation”, says Statoils’s CEO Helge Lund. “In addition, we look forward to partner with Sinochem Group in the further development and operations of the large Peregrino field. Both companies see many opportunities for value creation through increased recovery and exploration for additional resources in the decades to come. The recent transaction confirms the high quality of the Peregrino asset, reflecting Statoil's value added through the field development”, says Lund.

The Sinochem Group, incorporated in China in 1950, is 100% state owned and is China’s 4th largest oil company and the largest integrated agrichemical product and service provider. It has been consistently named as a Fortune Global 500 company and was most recently ranked as the 170th largest company. In 2009 Sinochem Group’s sales revenue was approximately US$36 billion, and profit US$0.9billion.

The Sinochem Group has operated in the international oil business for several decades and started making its first overseas oil and gas investments in 2003. Since then it has successfully completed approximately $1.8 bn of overseas acquisitions in the energy sector, focusing primarily in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Statoil is an international energy company headquartered in Norway. It has more than 35 years of experience from oil and gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf and has currently operations in 40 countries. Statoil is among the world’s largest offshore oil and gas operators and is seen as a leader in technology and resource management.

Statoil has 29,000 employees worldwide, and is listed on the New York and Oslo stock exchanges with a market capitalisation of approximately USD 70 billion. Equity production in 2009 was 1,962 000 boepd and booked reserves of oil and gas is reported at 5.4 billion barrels.